Chapter 26

Ning Jia knew immediately that the captain was going to announce the selection of a new accountant. She quickly picked up the bowl, gulped down the porridge, turned to Li Yao and said, “Let’s go, let’s go to the meeting on the wheat field.”

An Ye immediately put down the bowl and said, “Li Xu, let’s go and see what’s going on.”

The two of them went out one after the other, and she knew that today’s bowl would most likely fall on her again.

Then, Bai Jinfeng rolled her eyes, looked at the third and fourth sons’ wives who were also about to get up, and hurriedly followed them out: “I’ll go and save a place for you, lest you get there too late.”

She cooked in the morning and definitely wouldn’t wash the dishes.

Let the third and fourth son’s wives wash this bowl!

If the two of them didn’t want to wash, Li Tao would do it.

This sister-in-law doesn’t earn any work points all day long, and she doesn’t do any housework. She just eats.

Ning Jia had a limp and could hardly walk, so Li Yao carried her on his back to the wheat field.

She lay on his strong shoulders, her gentle breath sprayed on Li Yao’s ears. A tingling sensation continued to come from his ears, and the hairs all over her body stood up, as if an electric current had passed through them.

On the way, the two people didn’t say anything.

When they were almost at the wheat field, Li Yao suddenly said, “Don’t take Fifth Sister-in-law’s words to heart…”

“I don’t bother with her.”

Li Yao had two more sentences to say, but when he heard Ning Jia’s indifferent tone, the two sentences suddenly got stuck in his throat and he couldn’t utter them.

In the end, he just said “hmm” and didn’t mention the topic anymore.

When Li Yao carried Ning Jia to the wheat field, many people had already finished their meals and came with their stools to attend the meeting.

Seeing this scene, people immediately started to tease the two people.

“Hey, Li Yao, your wife doesn’t have long legs, why does she let you carry her on her back when she goes out?”

“Haven’t you always slept in the same bed with your wife? When did you become so close?”

Li Yao is not good at speaking and doesn’t talk much on weekdays.

When hearing this kind of words, most people just frown and keep silent, and those who are joking stop talking when they realize it’s boring.

Ning Jia couldn’t listen any more: “Why do you mind? You haven’t figured out the things happening on your own little piece of land yet. Do you think it’s fun to stare at other people’s things every day?”

“…”

“This little wife is really amazing.”

“Of course not. I heard that she and the fifth son’s wife quarreled in the yard every day! What sin did Old Lady Xu commit to marry two living ancestors at once?”

“Ignore them and sit down.” Li Yao put the stool on the floor and helped Ning Jia sit down.

Soon, other people in the village arrived one after another, and even a few educated youth from the educated youth point came.

After a while, the production team leader came slowly over with a big loudspeaker and a teacup in his hand. The deputy production team leader, the scorer, the custodian, accountant Liu, and the village women’s director all followed.

“Is there something big to be announced at today’s meeting? Why are so many people here?” The widow Chen from the village was sitting next to Ning Jia. She came over and asked her casually.

“It should be.” Ning Jia said.

“Why are these educated youth here too? What do they have to do with electing a leader in our village?”

“That definitely requires someone with some knowledge.” Ning Jia said with a smile.

Widow Chen was stunned: “Oh, what you said makes sense. I find you are quite smart. Come, have some melon seeds, they are delicious.”

“Thank you.” Ning Jia was not polite and grabbed a handful from her hand and started knocking.

“Quiet! Everyone, be quiet!” The team leader raised the loud speaker and began to speak. “I called everyone to the meeting today to announce something. Old Liu from our village will no longer be an accountant starting next month! Of course, it’s not because he’s not doing a good job, but because Old Liu is old and his brain can’t keep up, so he took the initiative to give up the job. I called everyone here today just to select this accountant!”

The job of an accountant is both leisurely and clean. You just have to do some calculations and writing in the house and earn a lot of work points.

When will the accountant be short of money?

This is a lucrative job!

For a while, the wheat field was extremely lively, and everyone was discussing who would be the accountant.

“Quiet down.” The captain raised his hand, motioning for everyone to be quiet, and continued, “For the sake of fairness, and to give more people a chance to try, so, after discussing with several of our village leaders, we decided to let everyone compete for the job! In other words, everyone has the opportunity to sign up, and then compete, and the winner will be the winner!”

“Okay! That’s a good idea!”

“Fair, this is fair!”

There was thunderous applause in the wheat drying field, and everyone was eager to try.

“Raise your hands if you want to sign up. Start from the first row and stand up and say your name. Scorer Zhang Ping will register us.”

“I’ll sign up first, Lin Xiaoxi.” Lin Xiaoxi was the first to raise her hand.

As soon as she stood up, the villagers who had originally planned to sign up decisively chose to give up.

“They are educated youth, more educated and knowledgeable than us. It’s not bad, let’s not embarrass ourselves.”

“I’m Zhang Zhouzhou.”

“Lin Qingxing.”

“Li…Li Tao.”

One after another, people signed up, and the scorekeeper wrote them down: “Anyone else?”

An Ye stood up slowly: “Yes, I’ll sign up too, An Ye!”

“Boom——” a burst of laughter.

“And me, Ning Jia!”

“Boom—hahahaha” another burst of laughter.

“They are two sisters-in-law who are funny, aren’t they? One can’t recognize a few characters, and the other can’t do addition or subtraction beyond ten fingers.”

“It’s really a joke.”

All kinds of discussions came from every corner of the threshing floor, mercilessly mocking the two of them, and everyone was waiting to laugh at them.

“Okay!” the production team leader said, “It’s decided! Accountant Liu will quit next month, so we’ll have an open competition next month. We still have half a month to go back and prepare!”

“What are you competing for?” someone asked.

“Accountant, accountant, what do you want to compete in? Of course, it’s about accounting!” Accountant Liu interrupted.

“Captain, is this meeting over? After it’s over, shall we go home?”

“No hurry.” The production team leader continued, “There is another thing to announce. When our village women’s director Zhang Honghong went to the city to do business, the cow got scared and the cart overturned into a ditch. Her leg was broken and her head was knocked unconscious. She has to be hospitalized for treatment. This job can’t be done for a while. Our village also needs to elect a women’s director! Anyone who has signed up can come together.”

Hearing that the position of women’s director was open, several more people signed up.

After the registration was closed, the team leader announced: “In half a month, we will hold an open election here in the threshing floor. The person with the most votes will have the job! Okay, the meeting will end here! Leave a few people to clean the threshing floor! I think we should keep only the people from Team 3! The rest of you are dismissed!”

The Li family was assigned to the third team. An Ye, Bai Jinfeng and Li Tao were left behind to clean the wheat field, while the men went to the fields to continue digging ditches.

“Li Yao, come with me.” The captain called Li Yao away.

Before leaving, Li Yao handed Ning Jia to his sister-in-law Bai Jinfeng, asked her to clean up and then help Ning Jia home.

So, Ning Jia had nothing to do at the moment, so he sat in the threshing floor, cracking the melon seeds given by Widow Chen, and lazily basking in the sun while watching them work.

After each meeting in the threshing ground, there would be a lot of melon seed shells and cigarette butts, making the ground a mess.

As An Ye was cleaning, he complained, “How uncultured! Really uncultured! Look at all the cigarette butts thrown everywhere.”

When he came to Ning Jia, An Ye squatted down, pretending to pick up a cigarette butt, and talked to her: “Jia Jia, there are quite a few people who signed up. Tell me the truth, do you plan to be an accountant?”

“What about you? If you do it, I won’t do it. I just want to be lazy and don’t want to go to work.”

An Ye thought about it and said, “That’s what I meant.”

“It’s okay, either of us can do it, but it can’t be Lin Xiaoxi!”

“right!”

The two men were chatting when Zhang Erlaizi passed by them cracking melon seeds, leaving the shells everywhere.

“Hey, Zhang Erlaizi, you’re throwing skins while we’re sweeping the floor. When will we be able to finish sweeping?”

Zhang Erlaizi stopped and spit out a few more melon seed shells from his mouth. He leaned over with his arms hanging and groaned, “What? Isn’t this what you do? If I don’t spit out the melon seed shells, what are you sweeping? If you don’t sweep, where will the work points come from?”

An Ye was furious.

What kind of heresy is this?

“Listen to yourself, are you talking like a human being?” An Ye rolled up his sleeves, “Don’t vomit again, or I won’t be polite to you.”

Zhang Erlaizi glanced at An Ye, then staggered to Li Tao. He stood directly beside Li Tao and kept talking one after another.

“Erlaizi, either you stop eating or you finish eating. Can you please stop eating one mouthful at a time like this?” Li Tao glared at him angrily.

Zhang Erlaizi grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth: “If you don’t let me eat, then you can call me good brother. If you call me that, I won’t eat anymore.”

“Calling you brother, you are dreaming!”

Zhang Erlaizi: “I’ll just eat it!”

As he spoke, he cracked the melon seeds more vigorously and deliberately threw them in front of Li Tao.

In fact, he has always liked Li Tao and has been pestering her behind her back, wanting her to marry him.

Old Mrs. Xu said she wanted two hundred yuan as a betrothal gift.

If he gave her 200 yuan as a betrothal gift, she would marry Li Tao to him.

He couldn’t take it out, but he didn’t want to give up Li Tao, so he took advantage of the opportunity to pester Li Tao.

An Ye once scolded him as “a toad wanting to eat swan flesh”, and he began to bear a grudge against An Ye.

So, I took the opportunity today and deliberately made An Ye angry.

Seeing him being so shameless, Li Tao was so angry that her face turned red: “If you keep talking like this, when will I be able to finish sweeping?”

“Then just keep sweeping. You’re free anyway.” Zhang Erlaizi smiled nonchalantly.

As soon as she finished speaking, a stone flew to his feet.

He turned around and saw Ning Jia leaning on a stick and staring at her: “The people at the crematorium are also idle, why don’t you go find something for them to do!”

“Ning Jia, what do you mean? I’m talking to Li Tao, what does it have to do with you!” Zhang Erlaizi also glared back at Ning Jia.

An Ye grinned and sneered, “Zhang Erlaizi, don’t you have a mirror or urine at home? You don’t even take a piss to look at yourself, and you still want to marry Li Tao? You are dreaming!”

“None of your business!”

“She’s my sister-in-law, I’m going to take care of her today!” An Ye poked the broom up, “If you have the guts, come at me and see if Li Xu won’t punish you!”

“I’m in charge too! I’m telling you, don’t try to get close to Li Tao in the future! Otherwise, I’ll beat you up every time I see you.” Ning Jia also cursed with his hands on his hips.

Seeing this, Bai Jinfeng also came over to join in the fun: “Second Laizi, get out of here right now, or we women will tear you apart, do you believe it?”

Zhang Erlaizi got nothing to gain and could only leave in disappointment.

Li Tao was about to cry: “Thank you, sisters-in-law. This scoundrel has been pestering me. If you hadn’t helped me drive him away, who knows what he would do to me.”

“Don’t cry. If you have any problems in the future, just tell your sister-in-law. Your sister-in-law will support you!” Bai Jinfeng wiped her tears.

“Yeah.” Li Tao nodded and looked at Ning Jia and An Ye gratefully.

Normally, these two sisters-in-law quarreled fiercely, but she was timid and dared not to provoke them.

Unexpectedly, the ones who stood up for her today were actually these two sisters-in-law.

Her heart felt warm.

“Sister-in-law Liu, go and have a rest. I’ll help you go home later.”

“No need.” Ning Jia pointed at An Ye and said, “Just let her help me back! You are small and thin, and she is strong!”

“It’s not impossible. I can’t help you for nothing, you have to thank me.”

“I know, I hate you the most!”

An Ye helped Ning Jia walk back. On the way, An Ye asked Ning Jia: “Why did you stand up for Li Tao?”

Ning Jia: “I remember the book said that Li Tao was an honest girl, but she was ruined by Er Laizi. This old lady Xu really doesn’t treat her daughter as a human being. I was so angry when I saw it!”

“Me too!”

“Although we are a little bit immoral, right? But, our values ​​are positive, right?”

“Of course!”

“So, we must help Li Tao. Besides, Li Tao can be useful to both of us!” Ning Jia said.

“What’s the use?”

“Great use!” So, it’s not too much for her to pave the way for herself in advance.

“You’re keeping me in suspense again.”

Ning Jia chuckled: “Think carefully about what Li Tao’s special skills are. Then you will know what great use she has.”

An Ye recalled the original plot and couldn’t help but burst out laughing: “I know. You are really good! What, have you figured out how to make money next?”

“Of course.” Ning Jia grinned, “Thanks to the captain’s words today, I came up with a good idea.”

“Let’s go for it together!”

“Okay! The highlight is yet to come!”

The two people entered the house. Old Mrs. Xu was feeding chickens in the yard. She was puzzled when she saw An Ye helping Ning Jia in.

“Oh, the sun is rising from the west today? You two are not fighting anymore? I heard that you two are planning to compete with Lin Xiaoxi for the accounting job. Are you two the right people for this job?” Old Mrs. Xu said sarcastically, “I’m afraid that by the time the accounts are not settled, you can tear yourself apart or buy yourself up, but you still can’t fill the hole in the account.”